


goodness and mercy

by songbird97



Category: Free!
Genre: Angst, Colonel Haru, Fluff, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Mentions of Injuries, Post-Apocalypse, Post-Apocalyptic War AU, War, War Doctor Makoto, to be more specific
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-21
Updated: 2018-04-21
Packaged: 2019-04-25 21:56:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14387916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/songbird97/pseuds/songbird97
Summary: Haruka flexes his hand.Two weeks,he thinks. Then he’s back to his command, back to the battlefield. Back to the foot of his grave, staring down.(He wonders what face Makoto would make, if he heard Haruka say this aloud.)





	goodness and mercy

**Author's Note:**

> i blame iska and kash conjointly for the inspiration behind this .... title from "through the valley" bc i'm TLOU trash, even tho this has entirely nothing to do with zombs - i hope you all enjoy anyway <3

****It’s just past two in the morning when Haruka hears the lock turn.

He isn't concerned. There’s only one person that would bother Haruka this late at night—and only because he must know, inwardly, that it doesn’t really bother Haruka much at all—only one person who could get the lock open so cleanly and quick without a key, and yet the sound still echoes up his spine, rattling his teeth, raising hair.

“One of these nights I’ll be sleeping,” he says evenly.

The door opening had preceded a set of footfalls coming in over the threshold, and now Haruka hears the door close, the rusted lock latching again. He strikes the nearest match and lights a third candle, and somewhere among this Makoto says, “If you were, I’d just leave.”

“I’m a light sleeper,” Haruka sighs, taking the candle and placing it on the table in the center of the tiny room. Most of the other soldiers are asleep in communal quarters but Haruka’s rank has earned him a bedroom in this camp—he still isn’t used to it, after months of being stationed here. “You’d wake me up, so you might as well stay if it happens.”

Makoto says nothing for a bit. He is standing still, and seems to absorb most of the candlelight rather than become clearer in it. “I wonder if I should take that as an invitation to stay now, too.”

“You’ve been sneaking away from your work to break into my rooms or tents for three years and you still have to ask.” There’s a funny feeling saying it, something fluttery that makes Haruka's mouth feel like it’s stuffed with cotton. Makoto looks sheepish. “At this point I should ask that we’re situated conjointly.”

“That might not be the best idea,” Makoto says, a little too quickly. There is a look in his eyes that reveals he knows that Haruka isn't serious, but that he doesn’t feel it’s a matter worth joking about. He keeps his hands behind his back. “Besides. I always make sure there’s someone else in the medical tent.”

“None of them are as good as you.”

Makoto is flushing now, deeply. His glasses are up, resting in his hair rather than on the bridge of his nose. It makes him look older rather than younger, and more tired. His eyes are darker when they aren’t magnified. "I think you're biased, Colonel."

Haruka's mouth twitches. He glances over at the tiny window, making out a small smattering of stars; they've provided a sort of comfort for him these last few months, because in most places he's been the smoke and smog has clouded the sky out completely. The stars are a reminder that at least the world still turns.

He says, "I should ask what brings you to my lonely little corner of the camp."

Makoto makes a noise; now he just looks guilty, but he'll always deny his motives. “I just came to ask if you’re healing okay.”

At the mention of it, Haruka curls the hand that’s in a sling, tries not to wince too visibly when he grazes the cloth patch over the wound on his side. Bullets haven’t ever been kind to him, but he supposed they were never created to be a kindness. “It’s nothing worse than what I’ve healed from before,” he says. “I should be suited to fight within the next two weeks.”

Makoto’s eyes narrow, and already Haruka wishes he could cut the conversation short. In the candlelight shadows cut Makoto's face into thirds, and it makes him look even more severe than usual. “You don’t need to fight,” he says. “You're allowed to rest longer. We only need you to command.”

It isn’t a suggestion—but Haruka isn’t lined up to take orders from Makoto, and they’ve always had different points of view about this war anyway, where the battlefield itself is concerned or otherwise.

Haruka turns away. “Two weeks,” he says again.

“Haru.”

“It would be nice,” Haruka says, very quietly, looking at the floor, “if we could have a night without you doing this.”

Makoto is quiet for some time. Haruka feels, not for the first time, something physical and slimy circle them in the dark; it paints the walls with something stifling. He’s sure that, someday, what it is that’s different about them will suffocate them both.

“I’m sorry,” Makoto says eventually. “I know. I know how important you think it is that you fight.”

“It isn’t just that I think it is,” Haruka says. He shakes his head. “Let’s not. You should get back to the medical tent.”

Makoto makes a chuffing sound, halfway a laugh. “Actually,” he starts, dryly, “Nagisa kicked me out.”

“... Kicked you out.”

“Yes. He thinks I’m throwing myself into my work too much.”

Haruka looks away. He supposes that’s how you can truly separate the newer from the experienced. “He’s naive if he thinks you have a choice.”

“He’s sweet,” Makoto tries to amend, wringing his hands now. “Maybe working alone at the tent will do him some good.”

Haruka frowns and says nothing. Nagisa _is_ sweet, and it is always a shame to watch someone so bright and optimistic sink into the hopelessness that the war perpetuates; but he is also certainly naive, and the best way to clear naivety away is to penetrate it with reality. So he can’t disagree. Not with any of it.

“Haru,” Makoto says. “Look at me?”

There's immediate hesitation. Looking at Makoto hasn't really ever meant anything good for Haruka; it's what got them into this mess in the first place, looking too much. Allowing himself to be looked as equally as much. A different kind of looking than he would allow anyone else, no less.

But he hasn't ever been able to deny Makoto this one thing, and he can't do it now. He meets Makoto’s eyes, lets them pull him closer until Makoto is touching his face, neck, shoulders, then lets his fingers slip below the collar of his shirt.

“Don’t,” Haruka whispers, though, when Makoto’s fingers stray to the first button of his shirt. 

Makoto listens, stops, and frowns. “I’m sorry,” he says, and it doesn’t sound like he’s talking about undressing him. “I don’t mean … I’m not trying to undermine what you do. What you’ve done. For this war and for our colony.”

Haruka reaches for him, touches his mouth and hushes him, or tries to. But Makoto just sighs, takes his wrist and whispers into the tips of his fingers.

“I can’t imagine a day where you won’t come back.”

That isn’t it, though. Haruka knows. “I’ll always come back,” he says.

He’s prodding, and Makoto must know it because his eyes are crescent moons that are saturated with dread, and with fear for whatever comes next. Even progress. Especially defeat.

“All of you,” he says.

Haruka shivers. This is a weakness he can’t put into words, and doesn’t know if he ever will. “Then you’ll get to say you told me so.”

“Haru,” Makoto says again.

“I’m not going to stop doing my job just to please you,” Haruka says gravely. “I’ll never do that.”

“I know.”

“You don’t.”

“I do,” Makoto asserts, narrowing his eyes. “I know. I wouldn’t stop doing mine either.”

Haruka presses himself closer, shoves his body up against Makoto’s fast enough for him to make a noise of surprise. “Even if I asked you to?” he asks, curling careful fingers over Makoto’s waist. “Even if I told you right now that I didn’t want anything to do with this war anymore. If I could find a way to leave and I asked you to come with me, you wouldn’t come.”

Makoto gives him a thoroughly tormented look. “I don’t know,” he whispers, then looks away. “That’s enough.”

Haruka steps away and says, without thinking, but also without much remorse, “Nothing will ever be enough for you.”

Makoto freezes, then glares at him, unfettered; it is exactly what Haruka wanted. “I haven’t done anything wrong,” he says firmly. “ _We_ haven’t.”

“They could court martial us for some of the things we’ve done,” Haruka murmurs. “And they could kill us if we deserted.”

“I never said anything about deserting,” Makoto says, nearly snaps with the way his voice breaks. “Is it so terrible to think about what it would be like if we didn’t have to worry about any of this?”

“Yes,” Haruka says with some difficulty, circling back to his bed. “Because you’re _hoping_.”

“Hoping isn’t _illegal—_ ”

“That isn’t the point,” Haruka snaps, over his shoulder. “It gets smart people to do stupid things. It gets capable people killed.”

Makoto laughs in a way Haruka's never seen before, harshly and without humor. “Sometimes I wonder if that’s so terrible.”

“Don’t,” Haruka says, severely this time. He tries to deliver something icy, something unforgiving through his eyes that he hopes hits Makoto squarely in the chest—but Makoto can be _unmoving_ when he wants to be, and neither he nor the complacent look on his face budges an inch. “You can’t talk to me about how difficult it would be for you to lose me and then not expect me to feel the same way about you.”

“And you can’t say that when you consistently bargain with your life,” Makoto retorts, so calmly. “It goes both ways, Haru.”

Haruka looks away. He quietly says, “I don’t know why we bother talking about this.”

“Because you’re argumentative,” Makoto says, and before Haruka can respond, adds, “and I keep bringing it up. I know.”

“Then stop,” Haruka says, feeling tired. So tired, so quickly. “For one night. Stop.”

Makoto drops his eyes and stares at the candle. A few moments pass. He whispers, “I’m sorry.”

Few times has Haruka seen Makoto act _vulnerable_ —kind, or careful, or attentive, more times than he can count, but almost never open like this. He supposes they’ve been fighting more, as of late. The tougher this war gets, the more impossible it seems to reach any kind of peace or justice for their people. Makoto's always poured his heart into his work, but they've been losing more soldiers lately. And Haruka knows that Makoto blames himself. He blames himself for everything.

So maybe doing this to each other is the only thing that can tear them open, in the end, after becoming so accustomed to letting one another inside. Haruka can watch a thousand comrades die and Makoto can lose just as many patients, but nothing hurts as much as mistaking where they can let their loyalties lay. 

It’s almost too bleak to think about, even in the face of their war. Haruka breathes, reaches for the buttons of his own shirt with the hand that isn’t strapped to his chest, and as he undoes them says, “Come here.”

Makoto’s glasses fall from his forehead during the break in their first kiss of the night, bridging their second, and by their third they’re sitting firmly on Makoto’s nose and Haruka’s pulling back to take them off, dropping them on the edge of the bed. He’s careful not to crush them when he drops himself onto it, too.

Tonight Makoto is on top of him, pulls at his clothes and skin with an impatience that’s almost indecent—more so when he’s swallowing Haruka’s gasps and dragging teeth and tongue down his throat, kissing at the hollow of it, daring him not to breathe. When they’re closer than close, Haruka can feel his every heartbeat. And Makoto holds him all through it, never letting him farther away than half an arm's distance, never not touching him in one way or another.

It's as if he values Haruka wholly. As if he’s something precious.

The thought itself breeds terror.

There’s a scar in the center of Makoto’s chest that he’s never asked about, and he doesn’t think he will tonight, either. But he kisses at it, traces the shape of it with his tongue and Makoto makes a noise like he _knows_ , like there are things deeper than what they allow themselves to talk about or do, but that they’re worth saving for later. If there is a later to be had at all—and god, do Haruka’s own scars remind them of that, now and every time that they do this. Over and over again.

His legs don’t last long, and he can’t keep himself up in this position with just one arm—but Makoto keeps him hoisted with hands that heal, arms that hold, and Haruka chokes on something that turns into a moan more out of coincidence and less out of intimacy. But it’s enough to hide what’s overwhelming him, so he rides it out, bites down on Makoto’s shoulder and closes his eyes where Makoto falls into him once more. 

In the end, as always, he feels like he could sleep forever. Makoto pushes careful fingers through his hair and kisses his face, follows him with gentle nudges even when he turns away, when looking at him is too much after this kind of exposure. Makoto’s fingers scrape down the nape of his neck and eventually find the curve at the small of his back, then lift him enough to pull the thin blanket over them both.

It surprises him. This is the reason he looks, but Makoto isn’t looking back at him.

“I won’t sleep,” Makoto says quietly anyway. “I just want to lay with you.”

Haruka wishes, instead, that he would sleep. He’s rarely seen Makoto sleep, and sometimes he wonders if he ever makes time for it. He reaches out, touches Makoto’s face, and when he closes his eyes again he can almost imagine he’s allowed to do it. That they’re allowed any of this, at all.

He presses his palm over Makoto’s mouth, catches his confused look, and says, “Sometimes I think about it, too.”

It’s all he needs to say. Makoto’s eyes go lax, like Haruka’s just told him that this war is over and that they can go home; like there's a home to go back to at all, if not here in each other's arms.

Makoto curls his hand around Haruka’s and pulls it back, holds it. He says, “I know.”

They’re powerful words. Haruka thinks this, and thinks of green, and thinks of this desperate feeling in his chest and how it will never be satisfied. And among these thoughts he must fall asleep, because in the next moment alertness is seizing his chest and when he opens his eyes, Makoto is gone. His room is alight with the sun.

He sits up. His arm is sore, but not unbearably so. He hisses when his arm brushes against his side. He never forgets, but sometimes he wishes he could.

Haruka flexes his hand. _Two weeks_ , he thinks. Then he’s back to his command, back to the battlefield. Back to the foot of his grave, staring down.

(He wonders what face Makoto would make, if he heard Haruka say this aloud.)

But just as well, he thinks, when he approaches the camp for breakfast and passes the medical tent, catches something much greener than the dying grass and greener than the color of their suits—just as well, because it’s two more weeks, at least, of this desperate feeling. The guarantee of that, or as close of a guarantee as he’s ever going to get, is worth more than any victory.

Makoto is back to the medical tent when Haruka passes. Nagisa is asleep on a cot. And Makoto looks up, hands stained red already, so early in the morning. Bizarrely, he smiles.

Haruka breathes and walks on. He doesn't need to return the smile, because what he's already returned is enough on its own.

The smell of smoke is heavy, the kind of lit fires and burning cigarettes; the air is thick and settled with fog. And for just one moment, Haruka dares to feel fine.


End file.
